September 06, 2005

Katrina - more own goals

It goes to show how overwhelming things are here right now that I
encountered the First Lady yesterday and I almost forgot to put it in
this e-mail. It actually couldn't have been a worse experience; a team
of us were working to put up a website with directions to every Red
Cross shelter in the region when we were evicted from the computer room
by the Secret Service. There's only one room in the Cajundome with
telephones and internet access for refugees, and Laura Bush shut it
down for eight hours (along with the food service rooms to the side and
the women's showers). You may have seen it on CNN; apparently seven
refugees were allowed back so Laura could help them in front of the
cameras. If you saw that footage, that's where I put in half my
volunteer hours. Not knowing Bush was still back there later I tried to
insist on being allowed back into the room to a "Red Cross" guy who
must have been a Secret Service agent undercover. A hint for future
Secret Service agents: The real Red Cross guys don't look like they
want to break your legs for walking too close to the barricade, because
they're too busy passing out food and helping people. They're also less
likely to use phrases like "Stand fast, sir!" Now, I know this is the
sort of thing that happens whenever a VIP tours a disaster site, and
maybe Laura Bush handing out that loaf of bread really will lead to an
increase in donations. All I can say is, to have paralyzed a third of a
day of operations at this stage of the game, it fucking well better.
And I tried to position myself to say this to her in front of the
television cameras too, but instead I only got a wave and a smile as
she hurried past me. Looks like I'm going to have to become nationally
infamous another day.

The thorough identification of at-risk populations, transportation and
sheltering resources, evacuation routes and potential bottlenecks and
choke points, and the establishment of the management team that will
coordinate not only the evacuation but which will monitor and direct
the sheltering and return of affected populations, are the primary
tasks of evacuation planning.

...

So the failure to order the buses out of their yards
wasn't some failure of imagination on the part of Nagin and New
Orleans. It isn't a case of the city not understanding the scale of
what a Cat-4 storm could do to the city. According to New Orleans' own
emergency plan, those buses should have rolled at least as soon as the
mandatory evacuation order was given on Saturday, if not when the
voluntary evac order came earlier. The city's OEP failed to carry out
this crucial part of the emergency-response plan, which is why so many
of the poor, infirm, and just plain stubborn citizens got stranded when
the levees broke.

And did the city anticipate the amount of people that would get left
behind? Apparently so, and designated shelter for 100,000 of them.
Curiously, the Superdome does not appear on this order:

Shelter demand is currently under review by the Shelter
Coordinator. Approximately 100,000 Citizens of New Orleans do not have
means of personal transportation. Shelter assessment is an ongoing
project of the Office of Emergency Preparedness through the Shelter
Coordinator.

The following schools have been inspected and approved as Hurricane
Evacuation Shelters for the City of New Orleans: Laurel Elementary
School

Walter S. Cohen High School

Medard Nelson Elementary School

Sarah T. Reed High School

Southern University Multi Purpose Center

Southern University New Science Building

O. Perry Walker High School

Albert Wicker Elementary School

Did these shelters remain open, and did they have the resources on
hand to provide food and water for 100,000 people? Did the decision to
select these locations take into account the probability of massive
flooding due to potential levee failure? Most importantly, if the
Superdome had no plan for sheltering citizens during a general
evacuation order -- and apparently had no provisions to do so -- why
did New Orleans stack its citizens like cattle there during the early
hours of the hurricane?

Many people have jumped to the conclusion that because the response
in New Orleans has produced such a bad result, the underlying reason
must have been a lack of planning. Had this document been followed and
the city trained to react in accordance to it, it would have produced a
far different result than what we see today. How often did city
officials review this plan? Did they train to it, as required in the
first section? When was the last time they ran drills against this plan?

It sure looks like no one in charge in New Orleans knew of this
plan's existence. They certainly skipped over the part where they had
the primary responsibility to take care of their own citizens. New
Orleans residents should ask themselves why Nagin failed to follow his
own disaster planning, instead of sitting on his rear and waiting for
the feds to bail him out.

I always took with a pinch of salt, those disaster movies where the Governor vacillates over some decision not because of its difficulty but because of the potential political fall out. Now I see that like Yes Minister they were actually documentaries.

Comments

It goes to show how overwhelming things are here right now that I
encountered the First Lady yesterday and I almost forgot to put it in
this e-mail. It actually couldn't have been a worse experience; a team
of us were working to put up a website with directions to every Red
Cross shelter in the region when we were evicted from the computer room
by the Secret Service. There's only one room in the Cajundome with
telephones and internet access for refugees, and Laura Bush shut it
down for eight hours (along with the food service rooms to the side and
the women's showers). You may have seen it on CNN; apparently seven
refugees were allowed back so Laura could help them in front of the
cameras. If you saw that footage, that's where I put in half my
volunteer hours. Not knowing Bush was still back there later I tried to
insist on being allowed back into the room to a "Red Cross" guy who
must have been a Secret Service agent undercover. A hint for future
Secret Service agents: The real Red Cross guys don't look like they
want to break your legs for walking too close to the barricade, because
they're too busy passing out food and helping people. They're also less
likely to use phrases like "Stand fast, sir!" Now, I know this is the
sort of thing that happens whenever a VIP tours a disaster site, and
maybe Laura Bush handing out that loaf of bread really will lead to an
increase in donations. All I can say is, to have paralyzed a third of a
day of operations at this stage of the game, it fucking well better.
And I tried to position myself to say this to her in front of the
television cameras too, but instead I only got a wave and a smile as
she hurried past me. Looks like I'm going to have to become nationally
infamous another day.

The thorough identification of at-risk populations, transportation and
sheltering resources, evacuation routes and potential bottlenecks and
choke points, and the establishment of the management team that will
coordinate not only the evacuation but which will monitor and direct
the sheltering and return of affected populations, are the primary
tasks of evacuation planning.

...

So the failure to order the buses out of their yards
wasn't some failure of imagination on the part of Nagin and New
Orleans. It isn't a case of the city not understanding the scale of
what a Cat-4 storm could do to the city. According to New Orleans' own
emergency plan, those buses should have rolled at least as soon as the
mandatory evacuation order was given on Saturday, if not when the
voluntary evac order came earlier. The city's OEP failed to carry out
this crucial part of the emergency-response plan, which is why so many
of the poor, infirm, and just plain stubborn citizens got stranded when
the levees broke.

And did the city anticipate the amount of people that would get left
behind? Apparently so, and designated shelter for 100,000 of them.
Curiously, the Superdome does not appear on this order:

Shelter demand is currently under review by the Shelter
Coordinator. Approximately 100,000 Citizens of New Orleans do not have
means of personal transportation. Shelter assessment is an ongoing
project of the Office of Emergency Preparedness through the Shelter
Coordinator.

The following schools have been inspected and approved as Hurricane
Evacuation Shelters for the City of New Orleans: Laurel Elementary
School

Walter S. Cohen High School

Medard Nelson Elementary School

Sarah T. Reed High School

Southern University Multi Purpose Center

Southern University New Science Building

O. Perry Walker High School

Albert Wicker Elementary School

Did these shelters remain open, and did they have the resources on
hand to provide food and water for 100,000 people? Did the decision to
select these locations take into account the probability of massive
flooding due to potential levee failure? Most importantly, if the
Superdome had no plan for sheltering citizens during a general
evacuation order -- and apparently had no provisions to do so -- why
did New Orleans stack its citizens like cattle there during the early
hours of the hurricane?

Many people have jumped to the conclusion that because the response
in New Orleans has produced such a bad result, the underlying reason
must have been a lack of planning. Had this document been followed and
the city trained to react in accordance to it, it would have produced a
far different result than what we see today. How often did city
officials review this plan? Did they train to it, as required in the
first section? When was the last time they ran drills against this plan?

It sure looks like no one in charge in New Orleans knew of this
plan's existence. They certainly skipped over the part where they had
the primary responsibility to take care of their own citizens. New
Orleans residents should ask themselves why Nagin failed to follow his
own disaster planning, instead of sitting on his rear and waiting for
the feds to bail him out.

I always took with a pinch of salt, those disaster movies where the Governor vacillates over some decision not because of its difficulty but because of the potential political fall out. Now I see that like Yes Minister they were actually documentaries.